First of all, I have to apologize for dropping out of the blogosphere for nearly two months. Apparently I was not missed. I received to comments and none of my colleagues who supposedly subscribe to my feed noticed. I guess it’s because they dropped of the radar too. Holidays tend to have that effect on people. I decided to be that new blip on the radar after an invigorating weekend at work. (Yes I used ‘invigorating’ and ‘weekend at work’ in the same sentence.

I worked with a dozen of my trainers in an effort to build a solid foundation of research and best practices for three new summer programs. Each one has a particular tech focus. The topics include:

• web 2.0 in today’s classroom
• creating a 21st century classroom (changing practices)
• using technology with Marzano’s nine trategies that work

I can’t be a hipocrit. I need to practice what I preach. Blogging is not some trendy practice that should take place to polish someone’s online presence, but rather be just one of many ways a person’s voice can be heard in the world. This brings me to my next topic: social networks.

Over the past 2-3 months, Facebook, MySpace, and other social profile sites have gotten attention. This time it is not NBC’s To catch a predator. This time it has to do with individuals speaking their minds freely. It isn’t just all people speaking, but people that are involved in education. The two big offenders seem to be young adults trying to enter or graduate from college and established classroom teachers letting off a little steam. I started to write this piece in November, but did not want to leave a bitter taste in my readers’ mouths.

There are two issues at hand here. I’ll begin with the young adults. Students exiting high school have just come through an extraordinary point in their lives. They are learning independence, how to contribute to society (for good and bad), and how to have a presence in the read/write web. For whatever reasons, many young adults share inappropriate comments, pictures, and videos with a group of friends. No big deal…that’s the life of a 16 year old. The problem lies within the power of ‘friends of friends.’ All of sudden Johnny’s comment, sent to Billy, is seen by Billy’s sister, and then back to Johnny’s sister, who tells Mom. Try the Friend Wheel application at Facebook. (see similar Delicious tool) This is much different than kids 30 years ago. The only major difference is the medium. It’s no longer the rotary dial phone in the kitchen. College advisory boards are now looking at social profiling their potential students prior to accepting them into their prestigious university. Is this fair to students? They have gone through a point in their life that they (most likely) will grow through as they go through college. Those that don’t get caught on the other end as they attempt to establish a career at a business, school, or higher ed institution that screens them once again.

The latest news around here has been about local teachers losing their job, teaching license, or reputation because they were a little too careless about how they spoke about their day at work. What are your thoughts on Facebook as a tool for educators / professionals/ people wanting to be taken seriously? I do agree that there is a line of professionalism that teachers must walk carefully, that includes paying closer attention to what we say while we are online. It’s not long before a platform like OpenID proliferates all of the tools so that one account grants you access to dozens of aliases and the comments you leave – like a trail of breadcrumbs.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/3943618/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4YCirhhu-A

A focus on personal learning networks – I shared my skype, twitter, blog, & contact information with total strangers that were supposed to reciprocate, however they didn’t know what these tools are. This networking opportunity provided me with a reinforcement of the idea that teachers are overwhelmed and afraid of not being able to keep up. I was glad to share my knowledge and experience with these particular tools, I only hope that they will go home and make these connections – to become not only followers of my tweets, but participants in the blogosphere as well. I look around the room in this presentation and see lights on or off. I hope that those that have a light on will share with others and those with lights off make connections to others so that they can become more aware of the possibilities for PLNs.

I almost lost it. The individuals at my table were SO OPPOSED to exposing students to the web. I heard phrases like “Kids don’t need to have access to everything out there” and “We don’t have time to include that stuff in our class.” I think back to some conversations with others in Ed Tech and realize that we need to work with teachers to refine their thinking. Technology is not an add-on, but an integral part of student learning and teaching practice.

Lesson Learned: When you introduce wikis, blogs, and web tools to classroom teachers, you must start out with definitions lead by examples. You must also take participants through the process of establishing each tool that was used. This provides on the spot guidance through creating a web presence. When participants go through these processes together, they are more likely to continue their personal exploration of these tools. Individuals that are not given support initially are not likely to go back to the class and start using this on their own. Also, teachers must be provided the opportunity for continuing this support long after the PD session has ended. Thankfully, this session ended with such support in a community wiki that is open to all.

Does this look any different than any other school out there today? At first, you might think yes because students have their own desktop, but of the thirty minutes I spent in this classroom, 20 of it was spent filling out reading logs, silent sustained reading, and shuffling worksheets from one student to the next. As a school described as a Technology High School, I found computers for nearly every student, equipment for every teachers, and skills that did not go far beyond the lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I watched as classes supposedly used multimedia to reinforce the curriculum, but it was more of the same. Teachers read a book with students and then reinforced the plotline and history with a MOVIE!!!!! I asked the teachers how much of the movie would be shown. “We’re going to watch 20 minutes of the movie…” I was relieved to hear that…but then she continued with “…each day until we finish it.” This isn’t promoting higher order thinking, contributing to the greater good of a global community, or nurturing ICT skills or digital literacy. So I have one question, what would you do to support this school’s endeavor to become a technology enriched environment?

How many of you have children (in class or at home) that have or want to have a social network identity? Some of you reading might be asking what a social network is, so here’s a basic explanation. By the way, I love that series! Why can’t students and teachers create content that effective?

Back to the topic at hand, social networking has power in numbers. It’s one thing to get to know your friends, but the idea of meeting friend’s friends opens up a door to an exponentially large number of people to include in your audience. MySpace and Facebook have been known to be home to countless internet predators, but not all social networks are created equal. For example, Ning – a build it yourself and control it yourself social network.  Check out the social network we created as a group of technology trainers. I admit, traffic has stalled, but we’ll be coming back to it down the road.

A second example of effectice social networking can be seen at LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social network for the white collars of today’s workforce. Need a job or just want to find other people in similar fields of work, create an account and begin by posting a description of your job.

Now here’s the problem with social networking: TechDirt just posted an article about universities denying student applications simply based of Facebook profiles. Is this right? I don’t know. My first thought is that we need to educate students not only about the proper etiquette and behavior in a face to face social environment, but also etiquette in online networking as well.

Is this part of our curriculum?

Yes. Ethical responsibility and behavior is part of the North Carolina Computer Skills curriculum. It’s just not something that is emphasized. Maybe it’s because no one includes this on tests……..

My parents suffered from my relentless attempts to take something apart and see how it works. For many years, it stopped there, because I didn’t focus on the individuals tasks I was performing. I was more interested in the final product of ‘the pile of pieces.’ This lead to many broken or disassembled items that would never be put back together without an engineering degree and/or the original manufacturing plant the item came from.

Today I took apart a couple of DLP projectors and was able to recover the working pieces to make one working projector from two broken ones. What’s my point in all this? The thought process, critical thinking, and the ability to reconstruct pieces into the whole. These skills can not be taught through traditional classroom approaches of the teacher as the Sage on the Stage. We must remember that in order to promote critical thinking and problem solving, meaningful tasks must becom a part of instruction and classroom participation. Although my journey of a million pieces has brought me to a point that I can (usually) dismantle electronic devices and pit them back together – often gaining a better understanding of how things work.

A few netbooks by Acer & Asus

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/five-things-tha.html

In response to a blog post by Karl Fisch, I agree 110% with what he has to say. Any one that labels themself an educator and refuses to learn ways to implement technology into daily instruction (providing the technology is available), should lose their license. Yes, I know that’s extreme, but if we want to provide students an education to make them ‘globally competitive’ and ‘future-ready’ we just have to get down to it and ensure that teachers receive the highest quality professional development. Don’t just offer technology instruction in isolation. After all, we don’t work in technology isolation. Hey life, hold on a minute while I go check my e-mail and pay the bills online. NOT!!!!

Each day, I set my mind on the task that when someone needs my help, I give to them. I do this with one thing in mind – educate others so that they might be able to help themselves. Give them the knowledge and confidence to tackle problems when they encounter them. Today’s education system no longer needs to cram information into student’s brain, but we need to show them how to dissect information and use it in meaningful ways. Critical thinking is vital to learning today.

So as we as continue down the paths of technology and education, we have to make sure that teachers focus on becoming technologically literate. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Try something new and celebrate your successes. From that, you will only move forward.

If you haven’t read Karl’s article, then please do so – and share it with others – after all it’s been around for more than a year.

By the way, here’s a shot of Karl I took at NECC this summer:

My new toy

The HP Mininote 2133 is just one of the many netbooks that have come to the market lately. Ranging between $300 and $600 schools are turning their attention towards netbooks. What experience do you have with these? Where and how have you seen them used? Models like the famous Asus EEE PC (700 and 900 series) as well as the brand new Dell Mini 9 are just some of the latest competitors. They have greater functionality for students and teachers, and less associated apprehension than the OLPCs that are hard to find.